There is none righteous, no, not one.

John Calvin has written:

“I say, that if we go back to the remotest period, we shall not find a single saint who, clothed with a mortal body, ever attained to such perfection as to love the Lord with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and, on the other hand, not one who has not felt the power of concupiscence. Who can deny this? I am aware, indeed, of a kind of saints whom a foolish superstition imagines, and whose purity the angels of heaven scarcely equal. This, however, is repugnant both to Scripture and experience. But I say further, that no saint ever will attain to perfection, so long as he is in the body. Scripture bears clear testimony to this effect: “There is no man that sinneth not,” saith Solomon (1 Kings viii. 46.) David says, “In thy sight shall no man living be justified,” (Psalm cxliii. 2.) Job also, in numerous passages, affirms the same thing. But the clearest of all is Paul, who declares that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,” (Gal. v. 17.) And he proves, that “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,” for the simple reason, that it is written, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,” (Gal. iii. 10; Deut. xxvii.: 26;) intimating, or rather assuming it as confessed, that none can so continue.”

(Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998, p. 303-304.)

Vain Teaching.

John Calvin has written:

“In regard to the Ten Commandments, we must, in like manner, attend to the statement of Paul, that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” (Rom. x. 4); and, again, that ministers of the new testament were “not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the split giveth life,” (2 Cor. iii. 6.) The former passage intimates, that it is in vain to teach righteousness by precept, until Christ bestow it by free imputation, and the regeneration of the Spirit. Hence he properly calls Christ the end or fulfilling of the Law, because it would avail us nothing to know what God demands, did not Christ come to the succour of those who are labouring, and oppressed under an intolerable yoke and burden.”

(Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998, p. 302.)

Free and uncontrolled.

John Calvin has said:

“But who, I ask, can deny the right of God to have the free and uncontrolled disposal of his gifts, to select the nations which he may be pleased to illuminate, the places which he may be pleased to illustrate by the preaching of his word, and the mode and measure of progress and success which he may be pleased to give to his doctrine,—to punish the world for its ingratitude, by withdrawing the knowledge of his name for certain ages, and again, when he so pleases, to restore it in mercy? We see, then, that in the calumnies which the ungodly employ in this matter, to perplex the minds of the simple, there is nothing that ought to throw doubt either on the justice of God or the veracity of Scripture.”

(Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998, p. 399.)

NT believers.

John Calvin has written:

“In the same passage, Augustine, with great shrewdness, remarks, that from the beginning of the world the sons of promise, the divinely regenerated, who, through faith working by love, obeyed the commandments, belonged to the New Testament; entertaining the hope not of carnal, earthly, temporal, but spiritual, heavenly, and eternal blessings, believing especially in a mediator, by whom they doubted not both that the Spirit was administered to them, enabling them to do good, and pardon imparted as often as they sinned. The thing which he thus intended to assert was, that all the saints mentioned in scripture, from the beginning of the world as having been especially selected by God, were equally with us partakers of the blessing of eternal salvation.”

(Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1998, p. 395.)